John Albert Cockerill

Background

John Albert Cockerill was born on December 04, 1845 in Ohio, the son of Joseph Randolph and Ruth (Eylar) Cockerill. During the Civil War his father was colonel of the 70th Ohio Volunteers.

Career

Enlisting at fifteen, John Cockerill saw service as a drummer boy with the 24th Ohio Regiment, 1861-1863, and upon being mustered out by the War Department, reenlisted as a bugler in the artillery. Before the war he had played “devil” in a small printing office and after he left the army he went to the Scion of Temperance, published at West Union, Ohio.

His first practical work as a printer was with C. L. Vallandigham, publisher of the Empire (later the Ledger) at Dayton, Ohio, and his first reportorial work was in 1870 in Cincinnati on the Cincinnati Enquirer of which, in 1872, he became managing editor. Four years later he left the editorial desk to become a correspondent for the Enquirer in the Russo-Turkish War.

On his return to the United States he joined the staff of the Washington Post before going to Baltimore to become managing editor of the Gazette in 1878. From that city he was taken to St. Louis by Joseph Pulitzer to aid in publishing the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In editorial charge while Pulitzer was in New York, Cockerill had, in 1882, criticized editorially the conduct of the law firm of Broadhead, Slayback, & Haeussler for accepting a retainer of $10, 000 from St. Louis in a suit against the Laclede Gas Company only to abandon the city and defend the corporation.

On October 5, he shot and killed Colonel A. W. Slayback after a fist fight started by the latter to force an editorial retraction. Cockerill insisted that he had shot in self-defense, but because of the bitter feeling the affair aroused left on an extended trip. In the spring of 1883 he resumed work with Pulitzer who, after the purchase of the New York World, wanted his former associate to take charge of the news end. Fertile in suggestions, Cockerill rose to be editor-incharge—a position he resigned in 1891 when his request for a controlling share in the World was refused. Then he purchased an interest in the New York Commercial Advertiser with which he remained until September 28, 1894.

He joined the staff of the New York Herald early in 1895, and was assigned to the Far East as a special correspondent in China and Japan. Homeward bound by way of Egypt, he was stricken with apoplexy in Cairo where he died. Fearless and fiery, a typical Southwesterner “upon whom the wear and tear of newspaper management made no abrasion, ” he was a great fighting editor in the period of the sensational press.

Achievements

• John Albert Cockerill achieved great success in the newspaper business. He made the significant contribution to the development of First-Dispatch and New York World periodicals. His letters from Japan were among the finest example of English composition and The Emperor of Japan conferred on him "The Order of the Sacred Treasure" for his documentation of the Japanese culture.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Second series of The major in Washington City: some amusing and amazing letters from a Southern standpoint

    ( About the Book The American Civil War, which broke out ...)

  • Custer battlefield, Burlington route

Politics

Cockerill was a member of the Democratic party until the administration of President Harrison, when he became a Republican and continued devoted to that party during his life.

Connections

Father:

Joseph Randolph

Mother:

Ruth (Eylar) Cockerill

References

• Pulitzer's Post Dipatch (Princeton Legacy Library)